P.M. Sound Technology, LLC -Custom Built Tube Amplifiers -Tube Amplifier Repair & Restoration Serving the Northern Virginia & Washington D.C. area

Marshall 2034 Cabinet Restoration

I recently had the opportunity to restore a seldom seen Marshall 8x10 cabinet. This is the wider 2034 model made in the early 70's. I believe that this one is about a '73. It is hard to tell since the serial number plate is missing. But that was the least of the problems with this cabinet when I received it. Click on the pictures to see larger images. Descriptions are below the pics. Only seven of the original eight Celestion 7442 speakers were present. All of them were blown or had voice coils that rubbed. The wiring harness was missing. The tolex was shot and I don't even want to comment on the "custom" grille cloth installation that a previous owner did. That's just scratching the surface.

Well, here is what it looked like when I received it. Evidently, when tolex gets torn, you spray paint it gloss black.

I pulled out the baffle and discovered that this amp originally had the checkered grille cloth.

I removed the 6 million staples that held the original grille cloth and white piping. Then, I started the process of removing the old tolex.

Unfortunately, the tolex was all that was holding the cabinet together.

The cabinet was reassembled, re-glued, and clamped.

The lower rear edge of the cabinet was actually missing a lot of wood and was rounded off from being dragged around. Yes, it was dragged because the casters were missing. I used a router to cut away the damaged area.

A new piece of birch was spliced in to restore the sharp lower corner. Then, the string grooves were cut into the splice with a 1/8" router bit in a Dremel tool. All smaller chips and dents were filled with wood filler and sanded.

Next, it was time to remove all of the old tolex glue. I turned to my belt sander with 50 grit belts, being careful not to allow the coarse paper to cut grooves into the cabinet. Here's where we skip ahead a bit. There are enough online tutorials about applying tolex. This is the finished cabinet with new tolex, grille cloth, logo, white piping, gold string, plastic corners, brass rivets, casters, side handles, skid plates, and back panel screws. I was able to salvage the original input jack cup.

Here are the seven re-coned Celestion 7442 speakers and one 7442 I picked up on eBay installed with a new wiring harness. Not only does it look great with that original '73 JMP 50 head, it sounds fantastic. Don't believe me? Just ask the folks across town.